


Dave: Reach Godtier

by DottedLine



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-08
Updated: 2011-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:22:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottedLine/pseuds/DottedLine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no more options.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dave: Reach Godtier

When first offered, Dave had been unable to take the plunge. He hadn't been able to accept his death was necessary to achieve Godtier. He'd chickened out.

But things were different now. Bro was dead. Davesprite was dead. Hell, as far as he knew, John and Rose were dead too. Jack, or Bec or whatever the fuck they were calling him now, was as powerful as ever and they were rapidly running out of people capable of fighting him.

Dave stared down at the Quest Bed where a doomed version of him had been slaughtered to force his understanding. He licked his suddenly dry lips in a way that he would have claimed was ironic, if anyone had been there to question, but was purely nerves.

He stared at the slab of stone as the eternal internal ticking that came with being the Knight of Time filled his mind, made him aware of every second he was loosing and just how much closer he was getting to death.

If the plan even worked. If he was right about his own crazy time shit. If his future self even showed...

Dave was startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw...himself. But there was a difference, and it wasn't just the red suit the other him was wearing. He looked older, worn, almost like the Dave that had become Davesprite, but more so.

Dave started to ask, but his older self shook his head and guided him to lay down on the cold stone with a firm hand. It was only then that Dave noticed the sword in his copy's hand. It was Bro's, whole and unbroken.

Dave kept his eyes open, watching as his double positioned the sword over his chest. He held his breath, waiting for the blade to fall.

When no blow came, Dave propped himself up on his elbows and looked at his time clone. He seemed to be hesitating, maybe giving him one last chance to opt out of this whole mess.

Dave nodded. Dave nodded back. One lay back down, the other removed his shades and raised his brother's sword. Red eyes met through black tinted glass and the sword fell.

Dave: ~~Reach Godtier~~ Die


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't supposed to hurt this much.

Dave: ~~Reach Godtier~~ Die

The only reason Dave didn't scream was because there was no air in his lungs. He tried, hands gripping around the slick silver metal that had now claimed the lifeblood of two Striders. He tried to wheeze in air around the sharp metallic pain in his chest. He tried to do anything that would stop this cresting wave of insanity-peaked pain.

But he had already made his choice.

He was choking, gasping, somehow swallowing his own blood when he couldn't even convince breath to pass his lips. His eyes were wide and panicked behind his so cool shades. He stared up into the face of his murderer, into his own face, red eyes disturbingly bare without the covering of tinted glass.

He felt the smoothslick slide of the blade being removed, felt more than heard the rasp against the stone as the tip was pulled from the Quest Bed he was dying on. This wasn't quick, this wasn't the painless death that he had planned. In the future, at whatever point this sadistic Dave came from, had he grown to hate himself so much to wish a painful death on his younger, softer self?

He didn't hear the sound the sword made when it finally parted with his flesh. It was probably for the best. He could finally suck air in now, but that whistling sound, that could not be good. But then, he'd planned on dying, but why couldn't it have been a quick strike to the heart? A swift death that he'd barely have time to feel?

Standing over him, the other Dave, the one that chose the killing wound, replaced his shades, hiding red eyes from the world. Looking away with a weapon stained in his own blood held loosely in one hand. He looked at his younger self, mouth set in a grim line, pokerfaced and unrevealing.

There was a snapcrackle of red light, a bust of burnt ozone that smelled acrid even in a land dominated by lava and superheated metals. Dave hadn't seen the turntables make an appearance. But then, he wasn't seeing much of anything.

Large black patches swam in his vision, and for just a moment, he was able to scream.

It hit him then. Everything. Every second of time in this godforsaken fucking game was laid out in front of him, and he could see it all.

Every.

Single.

Fucking.

Second.

And the ticking. The constant, unrelenting ticking that filled his mind ever goddamned second he was awake was getting louder and speeding up. And Dave didn't know if he could handle it. He felt like his mind was breaking, and he couldn't see any more, couldn't breathe anymore. He felt like he was going to snap.

And then it all stopped.

Dave: Rise Up


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What has he done?

Dave: Rise Up

  
Dave took a deep, shuddering breath as his world stopped fraying around the edges and his brain stopped trying to pull itself apart at the seams. He took another huge breath, and another, hands pressed over his chest where the wound had been.

  
There was nothing there now, but his suite had changed. The fabric felt strong under the questing tug of his fingers and the color would have blended in with the lakes and rivers of lava on LOHAC.

That was when he realized, his internal ticking was gone. And so was the constants ticking of LOHAC.

Dave looked around, but every gear was perfectly still. In a moment of panic that he would never man up to, he found himself racing across his lands. Everywhere he went, it was the same.

Nothing was moving. Everything was stuck, jammed like a poorly made clock. Everything was frozen in time.

It was the same when Dave left LOHAC, desperately searching the other three worlds. Everywhere he went, nothing moved, all of them caught mid-movement, trapped between seconds.

Even Jade.

She was frozen in the middle of a battle with an imp, her rifle up and a bullet halfway between them. He face was set in a fierce little frown, her eyes narrowed behind her round glasses. Dave reached out, but he couldn't bring himself to touch her, he didn't know what temporal effects he would have on her.

Even Rose.

Rose was in midair when Dave made it to the battlefield, her needlewands gripped tightly in her hands. But her posture was all wrong for an attack, and a quick glance at the immeadiate area showed that she had been thrown back by Bec Noir. Dave wanted to help his paradox sister, but without knowing his powers, he couldn't.

Even John.

He wasn't far away from where Rose was, and blood was spreading, would have been spreading if time had been _moving_ , from a stab wound in his chest. Dave backed away from his best friend and the looming demonic figure behind him.

He ran and he wouldn't have been able to say how far, beacuse space wasn't his thing. Time was. And he'd managed to fuck that up too, because he wasn't even sure how _long_ he ran before his muscles gave out and his lungs screamed at him to breathe properly.

,br />He stood with his hands on his knees, gasping and trying to think. Time was his thing, there had to be a way for him to fix this. He can't have broken time, it couldn't be possible. So he had to fix it. He had to think.

The first sign that he was doing something right was the return of his internal clock. The world around him still hung between seconds, between ticks, but he was back in the normal flow of time, and that meant that he was on the right track.

It took him 6120 hours 4 minutes and 13 seconds to fix what he had messed up, and to understand why it had happened. The Knight was never supposed to kill himself. It was not in his role. By playing his own Merry Murderer he had screwed himself up. And now, stuck in the loop, he had no choice but to go back and do it again.

Then he could help his friends and his sister.

After all, he had all the time in the world.

Dave: Go Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, the whole of Dave: Reach Godtier. I hope you all enjoy it, I certainly enjoyed writing it.


End file.
